


Home Field Advantage

by Bitenomnom



Series: Mathematical Proof [41]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Homicide, Kissing, M/M, Possessive!Sherlock, Sherlock does things that are A Bit Not Good, but then again so does John, cover-up, true love means covering up crimes for your flatmate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 02:55:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitenomnom/pseuds/Bitenomnom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Jesus <i>Christ</i>. Are you sure we shouldn’t just tell Lestrade what happened?”<br/>“And get him fired? Further threats to his credibility will mean the end of his career, and this is a big one. He can’t defend us from something like this. We can handle it.”<br/>“Right.” John didn’t sound particularly convinced.<br/>“We’ve seen it done a hundred times before,” Sherlock assured him. “Except I’m me, so we can do it better.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Field Advantage

**Author's Note:**

> I know that I probably managed to fit a hundred different plot holes into this little drabble. Shhh. That is why I have a beta for fics of more consequence than this one. XD
> 
> We didn't do a whole lot in class (a chunk of it was spent discussing [an analysis of tennis rankings my prof did for ESPN last year](http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/6850893/espn-analysis-finds-top-seeds-tennis-us-open-had-easier-draw-statistically-likely)), so, besides that, this is what I had to work with. I'm afraid the math section isn't very educational.

An analysis of some 2006 UK soccer* data** using a generalized linear model featuring the Poisson distribution as the link function (ideal because it involves counting, starts from 0, and does not necessarily have a maximum; see [The Paired Comparison Model](563526)) indicates that it is almost guaranteed that home field advantage is a factor in determining the outcomes of the matches (in addition to a given team’s offensive and defensive abilities, as gauged by points scored and points conceded, respectively).  
  
* Okay, even my British prof called it soccer, and so did the data set itself, so I’m sticking with it for consistency; don’t get too mad at me.  
  
** I don’t have a link to it right now—sorry! Hopefully the prof will be posting one up soon, if you are interested; I can also show you the analysis we did of the data, if you are interested.  
  
  
***  
  


            “Jesus _Christ_ ,” John muttered to himself, crouching low, and he looked over to Sherlock. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just tell Lestrade what happened?”

            “And get him fired? Further threats to his credibility will mean the end of his career, and this is a big one. He can’t defend us from something like this.” Sherlock ran his fingers along one slightly damp coat, roughly five years old, used daily, dusted lightly with what might be cocaine, wet to the touch with A positive. “We can handle it.”

            “Right.” He didn’t sound particularly convinced.

            “We’ve seen it done a hundred times before,” Sherlock assured him. “Except I’m me, so we can do it better.”

            John nodded, almost woozy. “Home field advantage,” he said.

            “What?”

            “Never mind.”

 

 

            They weren’t, strictly speaking, on the case. They weren’t actually on the case in any capacity, except for that there was a case and it sounded interesting and so it was inevitable that Sherlock would poke his nose into it, and so it was inevitable that John would follow to keep him out of trouble, and so they were on it.

            Sherlock’s homeless network had directed to him to the sort of dark and damp and foreboding tramway the likes of which John had hoped to more or less avoid for the rest of his life after being kidnapped by the smugglers. Sherlock had been right when he’d pointed out how dangerous firing a gun was in those tunnels—it made John uneasy.

            What made him even more uneasy were the shouted threats they approached a bend. John steadied his gun in his hand—dangerous or not, it was all he had.

            When what appeared to be the leader of the heated discussion— _knew he’d be about five six, and look at the width of his stance, definitely him_ , Sherlock had all but breathed in John’s ear—noticed them and pulled a gun on them, John steadied his body and shot, confident that he was good enough to make a reasonable job of it.

            And he did—but he hadn’t expected the bullet to continue through the man’s chest and ricochet off the wall and hit one individual hiding just behind a stack of boxes near the shouting group, squarely in the eye.

            The group dispersed quickly, running opposite the direction from which the bullet had come; neither Sherlock nor John made an effort to stop them, far outnumbered and quite possibly outgunned.

            John and Sherlock stepped hesitantly into the area to survey the damage.

            “Hey!” barked a gruff voice. John spun on his foot, saw the gun in its owner’s hands, and shot.

            “ _Shit_ ,” John hissed said a moment later, as he and Sherlock surveyed the damage.

            “What?” Sherlock stood up from inspecting the first body to go down.

            “Those last two?” John took in a deep breath. “They were officers on a stakeout.”

           

 

            “No, you absolutely may not.”

            “I mean it, Sherlock. This is beyond _oh, I secretly shot a serial killer to save your life_. I killed two police officers.”

            “And the leader of a very dangerous drug ring,” Sherlock added, and turned to John with eyes that, if John wasn’t completely out of his mind yet, were decreasingly cold and pragmatic and increasingly desperate. “You can’t go.”

            John exhaled heavily. “Sherlock…”

            “Who knows what they could sentence you to,” he muttered, now distracting himself with a glance over the chemicals in the cabinet.

            “Maybe I deserve it.”

            Sherlock whirled on his toes and stepped forward until he hovered within John’s personal space. “No. We’ll fix this. It will be easy. You’re not going anywhere, least of all to prison. You don’t belong there.”

            John shifted his weight uneasily, waiting for Sherlock to decide to start ignoring him and return to browsing his chemical library. “Pretty sure I do, this time.”

            “You belong with me.” Sherlock didn’t move. “You’re not going anywhere.” He grabbed either side of John’s face. “If you can’t process that, consider this: If you go to prison for this, I may, too. Even if I don’t, how do you think Scotland Yard and the rest of the morons of the world will treat the ‘psychopath’ whose best friend is a convicted murderer? I’ll never be able to do detective work again.”

            “You would make a rubbish consulting gardener,” John muttered, flushing with the guilt that came with the knowledge that he had, in less than thirty seconds, essentially ruined Sherlock’s chances of being able to do what he loved—maybe ruined his chances of ever being treated like the well-intentioned human being he was, beneath his ice and calculations. John took several more deep breaths, processing the idea. With each inhalation, his chin tilted upward toward Sherlock; as he exhaled, it dipped back down. “Okay,” he finally said, chin dipping.

            “Thank you,” Sherlock muttered, and as John’s jaw tilted back up, Sherlock caught John’s lips on his own. When he pulled away, John stumbled back into the table, dazed. Sherlock let his arms fall back to his sides. “You only shot them because you thought I was in danger. Do you regret it?”

            “I regret shooting the officers, yeah.”

            “But you didn’t think that at the time.”

            “I was thinking something like, _‘Bloody fucking hell, there were more of them back there?’_ followed by, _‘Shit, he’s got a gun.’_ ”

            “You see?” He stepped forward to lay a hand on John’s shoulder. “May I?” he whispered, and John nodded, and Sherlock kissed him again, deeper this time.

            John broke away. “I don’t think you should be encouraging this behavior.”

            Sherlock merely shrugged, and turned back to his supplies. “They definitely won’t find the bodies for at least three more hours. Those gunshots were remote enough not to be immediately heard and located by anyone. We have that long to make it look like the bullets came from a different gun under different circumstances. Get a good look at the gun the leader had?”

            “No,” John shook his head.

            Sherlock pulled something from his pocket and set it on the table: the shotgun. John bit back a frustrated groan at Sherlock’s rash actions; he wasn’t exactly one to criticise at the moment.

            “We’ve got his bullets, which will be helpful.” Sherlock paced about the room, and John recognized it as Sherlock preparing to frame a scenario. “He caught and held one of the officers at gunpoint,” Sherlock grabbed John and set the gun against his head at the spot where John’s second shot had hit the second police officer. “The other shot him through the chest, but he had already pulled the trigger on the officer he had.” He released John, who barely moved except to remove the gun from Sherlock’s hand, unload it, and set it back on the table. “We can generate the proper abrasion pattern ourselves to make it look like the shot came from much closer.”

            “And the other?”

            “Easy: the bullet from the hostage’s head went through, bounced, and hit the other officer in the eye, just as yours did.”

            “I don’t think it’d come out of the skull; at best it’d bounce around inside, like with the second one,” John found himself saying, and then flushing and looking away when Sherlock smirked at him.

            “Fair point. Fine, that one can have been someone else shooting, none too comfortable with witnesses, let alone police. Perfectly believable.” He shrugged and pulled something out of one of the kitchen drawers. “Feels a bit like cheating, but.”

            “ _Sherlock,_ ” John gave a warning growl, but stopped abruptly when he looked into the container through with Sherlock was rummaging. “Is that a bucket of bullets?”

            “I think I had a fairly common size that actually entered a body in a similar way,” Sherlock turned a few of them over, and set one to the side. “This will do, otherwise.”

            “It’s not exactly the sort of thing you wouldn’t deduce straight away. You could tell this was a cover-up.”

            “True,” Sherlock said, and he carefully laid a few chemicals inside a padded box. “I could.”

            “But…”

            “But I’ll be the one investigating the case when Lestrade can’t figure out what happened. And it _will_ be Lestrade; he’s already on this case, after all.”

            “ _God_ ,” John breathed. “Jesus.” He buried his head in his hands.

            “Mycroft has… _friends_ …in Switzerland.”

            “What?” He looked up through his fingers.

            “You’re worried something will go wrong. Don’t be. We’re fine, no matter what.”

            “We…”

            “Now, come on. There are a few touches besides the bullets that I need to add to make it especially convincing, and we haven’t much time.” Sherlock laid a few more things in the box between layers of padding and sealed it shut. He put on his coat and pulled his gloves on, and then tossed John’s coat and a pair of gloves to him.

            “Sherlock, this is a _really_ bad idea. This is exactly what…this isn’t worth…”

            “Isn’t worth what?” he asked sharply, whipping around. “You? Because that’s what’s at stake, here, John.”

            John opened his mouth to speak, found he had no words, and snapped it shut.

            “And it _is_.” 


End file.
